


Aníron

by nossraiths



Series: Wood and Water [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bardolas, M/M, Thorin Is an Idiot, bard is smitten, legolas is an ice princess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nossraiths/pseuds/nossraiths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do they tell their tales in Esgaroth?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aníron

The Prince of the Woodland Realm was tall and fair even in his father’s towering shadow, his hair falling in liquid white-gold waves down his back. His eyes were bright and hard as diamonds, winter-blue in the starlight as he joined Bard at his watch-post. 

“We are most grateful for your aid,” Bard told him.

“We are glad to be of service,” the Prince replied, “Long have we enjoyed our relationship with the Laketown.”

Elves rarely ventured down the banks of the Forest River; Bard worked on the river, and he had seen little more of the Woodland people than the empty barrels of Dorwinion wine that floated down on the white water. But he said nothing of this to the Elven prince.

The silence stretched out long moments beyond comfort, the night lit only by starlight and the cold sheen of the elf’s eyes.

“Legolas,” the prince said abruptly, “Thranduilion.”

“Bard,” Bard replied. “Formerly of Laketown.” He offered Legolas his hand, cautiously accepted.

“I have met your children,” Legolas told him, a smile breaking across his face like sunlight upon still water. “Your youngest has a formidable arm.”

“You were there with the lady Tauriel,” Bard realized. His daughters had yet to mention an Elvish lord in the attack on their home, but they had doubtless been more dazzled by the lady who led them from the burning ruin of Laketown.

“I am glad to have aided you and your family, Lord Bard,” Legolas said, “Especially in light of the service you have done us all.”

 “ _Tolo ar nin, Legolas_!” the Elvenking called, and Legolas pressed his palm to his opposite shoulder in brief salute before turning on his heel and rejoining his father in discreet discussion.

In the mountain caverns of the Dwarves there was treasure enough to rebuild Dale and fill her yawning shattered towers with bright golden bells, as they had been in story and song. For now there was no time to think of riches: people needed beds and shelter and food, not costly stones and lifeless gold. The three dwarves who had remained behind set out for the Mountain as soon as the youngest was well enough to begin the long trek west. Bard did not discourage their leaving; they had brought the dragon-scourge upon his town and his family, and it would suit him just as well if they found naught but burnt stone and the ashes of their kinsmen.

It fell to him to organize the efforts of Men and Elves, with the Master making himself more of a nuisance than he had when there was a Laketown to be master of. Bard enjoyed the work of reconstructing homes, hot and dusty though it was. It was more rewarding than poling his rotting barge along the Forest River.  

  ~~~           

Bard could see the glimmer of the dragon’s precious armor in the depths of the murky lake. The night came back to him like something in a dream; the fire, the cries of orphaned children and dying men, the black iron arrow fitted in the ancient war-machine of Dale. He would never forget the dragon’s dying roar as the town fell out from beneath him in a rush of fire and water.

So lost in thought was he that he didn’t notice Legolas’s deliberate approach until the elf was standing at his shoulder.

“There is a greater battle to come,” he said, and Bard started and swore. Legolas’s dark brows arched briefly, the only indication of his own surprise.

“The dwarves of Erebor are all gone, save the few left behind in Esgaroth,” Bard replied when he could speak again. “Our enmity is wasted on those poor souls.”

“May that you are right, Lord Bard,” Legolas answered, “For the _Naugrim_ will not be separated from their treasure without bloodshed.”

“You speak as though you know very much of their kind, Master Elf,” Bard said, “They were proud, certainly, and foolhardy, but they wished only to reclaim their home. Would you be no less if the Greenwood fell to its enemies?”

Legolas said nothing, folding his arms and tilting his chin towards his chest. His gaze was dark and frigid on the water, and for a moment Bard was afraid of him in his terrible beauty.

“Forgive me,” Bard murmured, and Legolas angled his head slightly.

“There is nothing to forgive, Lord Bard,” he replied at last. “You intended no harm.”

“What do you expect to find at Erebor?” Bard asked, hoping to draw the Prince forth again.

“Stones and blood,” Legolas answered, “That is the way of the mountains.” He was gone as quickly as he had come, leaving Bard alone with the dragon and the lake.

  ~~~   

It was Legolas who brought the dwarves’ odd little companion to the Elvenking’s tent in the middle of the night. The creature was wet to his skin, and Bard offered him a blanket and a seat.

“It is passing strange that we did not capture that one with the dwarves in the forest,” Legolas said, too quietly for Bilbo Baggins to hear.

“Perhaps he slipped through the bars of his cage and flew away,” Bard replied, and Legolas looked down at his boots too late to hide the shadow of a smile.

“I can assure you, Thorin is quite ready to sit on his gold and starve for as long as you wait here,” Bilbo said.

“Then let him,” Bard countered. “What care we?”

“I see,” Bilbo said. “All the same, winter is coming on and supplies will shortly be difficult to come by, even for elves. And there will be other difficulties; Thorin has called the dwarves of the Iron Hills to his aid.”

 “And why are you telling us this?” Bard demanded, “Are you betraying your friends, or threatening us?”

“I only want to avoid trouble for all concerned,” Bilbo answered, “I have come to you in the dark and the cold to make you an offer.”

“Let us hear it,” the Elvenking commanded.

“You may see it,” Bilbo countered, “Here it is!” And he brought forth from his patched and ragged clothing a dazzling white jewel, gleaming like unveiled starlight in the darkness. For his part, Bard was struck dumb; this one piece alone could restore the whole of Dale to glory. 

“The Arkenstone of Thrain,” Bilbo told them, “Quite a lot of trouble I’ve gone through for it, but I give it to you now to aid you in your bargaining.” He turned and held the stone out to Bard, but it was Legolas’s quick hands that plucked the Arkenstone from Bilbo’s grasp.

“How is this yours to give?” he asked suspiciously, and Bard came quickly back to his senses.

“It can stand as part of my share,” Bilbo replied, “Now I really should be getting on, my watch will soon be up.”

“And what fate will you suffer at the hands of Oakenshield when he finds the Arkenstone missing?” Bard wondered.

“I have more knowledge of dwarves than you, Master Baggins,” the Elvenking said, “I fear for your welcome there. You would be greatly honoured here in our camp.”

“Changed he might be,” Bilbo countered, “But Thorin and the others are still my friends.”

“I will return you to the Mountain, if that is your desire,” Legolas said, passing the stone to Bard. He gestured briefly to Bilbo and held the flap of the tent open to let him pass. “Come with me, Master Hobbit.”  

When he returned, Bard was still turning the Arkenstone between his hands and the Elvenking was in deep discussion with the late-arriving wizard. Legolas rummaged for a moment through one of the Elvenking’s strongboxes and placed a wooden chest on the table between them.

“Mithrandir will keep it,” Legolas told him. “He is not tempted by such things.”

“Are not all men susceptible to beauty?” Bard replied, placing the Arkenstone in the chest. Legolas closed it and the tent grew dim once more save for the faint glimmering moonlight captured in the hair of the elves.

“We are not dwarves to squabble over treasure,” he said stiffly.

“There are fairer treasures than cold stones,” Bard answered, and Legolas looked at him for a long moment before picking up the chest and joining his father and the grey wizard.

He dreamt that night of webs of starlight and still waters running deep.

  ~~~   

Bard felt the hot gasp of foul breath on the back of his neck and knew his poor children would be without a father as well as a mother. The orc screeched and Legolas’s hand fell hard on his shoulder, drawing him back over the body.

“Have a care, Bowman,” he said, “Orcs may not be as formidable as dragons, but their blades are just as deadly.”

“Forgive me, Master Elf,” Bard replied, and an echo of a smile flickered over Legolas’s face before he crouched abruptly over the dead orc. “I thought you would be with your own people.”

An orc leapt from the rocks and Bard’s shouted warning saved Legolas’s neck, though the blade cut into his unarmored shoulder. Legolas drove the point of a crooked black arrow through the orc’s eye and sat back on his haunches, holding his wounded arm tightly against his side.

“How is it?” Bard demanded.

“I can fight,” Legolas answered, “If you will but lend me your shoulder.” Bard braced his shoulder under Legolas’s unhurt arm and heaved him upright.

 “The arrows are orcish, but I fear there is nothing else to be had,” Legolas told him, pointing to the dead creature at their feet.

A horn blared across the field, higher and purer than the blast of an orc horn. Legolas’s head turned sharply towards it, and he drew one of his knives from its sheath on his back.

“May we meet at battle’s end,” he said grimly, and winged across the battlefield on light feet.

Bard did not see him again until after the enemy’s retreat. Legolas was sitting stiffly on the grass allowing the lady Tauriel to clean the blood from his bared shoulder, his hair falling like a pale veil across his face.

“Lord Bard,” Legolas said, tilting his head to look askance at him. “Are you well?”

“Thanks in no small part to you,” Bard replied, wiping his brow on the sleeve of his coat. “How do you fare?”

“He will live,” Tauriel interrupted, “If he will but keep still long enough for me to bandage his shoulder.”

“ _Goheno nin, Tauriel_ ,” Legolas said in his own tongue, and Bard went to the first open tent and fell facedown on the bedroll without removing his boots or coat. He descended immediately into a dark and dreamless sleep.

When he woke, Legolas was sitting in the corner of the tent tending to his bowstring and singing softly under his breath. If he knew Bard was awake, he said no word. Bard lay listening to the murmuring music of his Elvish companion until he slipped into slumber once more.

  ~~~   

Between the rebuilding of Esgaroth and the clearing of the battleground before the Mountain, there was little time to spare for his children. What time he could spare was often divided between himself and their guests; most of the elves had returned to their halls with their fallen kin, but Legolas and Tauriel would inevitably wander up the bright banks of the River Running for a meal at Bard’s table.

Bain and Tilda would trot along in the shadow of the elves, clamoring for their attention in the way only children could. Stern Sigrid seemed immune to their charms, but for his part Bard sometimes wished he could call Legolas’s eye to him and catch his ready attention the way his offspring did. Tauriel was little help in that regard: even when she was with the girls and Bain, half of Legolas’s attention with her.

“She is very beautiful,” Bard said when Tauriel had taken the children out under the pretense of collecting kingsfoil—he suspected she entertained the children with her gorier stories out of earshot—and Legolas looked up from the close examination of his fingernails.

“Tauriel is a gifted soldier,” Legolas replied, “She has been the captain of my father’s guard for 200 years.”

“Only 200 years,” Bard laughed, running his fingers along the grain of the table.

“How many years have you?” Legolas asked, looking up and pinning Bard to his seat with his sharp blue gaze.

“Four and thirty,” Bard answered at last, “How old are you, Master Elf?”

“I was born in the Greenwood in the thousandth year of this age,” Legolas replied.

“You’re older than you look,” Bard told him. “I would have guessed you had not much more than twenty years to your name. “

Legolas’s face split in one of his rare genuine smiles, dazzling as winter sunshine in the firelight dimness.

“You do me great credit, Lord Bard,” he said, “I must thank you.”

“The lady Tauriel is exceedingly beautiful as well,” Bard tried again, and Legolas looked archly at him from beneath his lashes.

“Tauriel is my _authgwathel_ ,” he replied, “She is my father’s ward and my friend in battle.”  He rose to his feet and turned to the door; a moment later Tilda rushed inside clutching an unfortunate brace of rabbits by their hind paws.

“Tauriel let me carry them!” she exclaimed, and Bard was caught up in the whirlwind of his excited little ones. Legolas and Tauriel made their polite farewells and vanished together into the dark, leaving only their shades behind at Bard’s kitchen table when all the children were abed.

  ~~~   

When they started out from the Long Lake, fingers of darkness and starlight were creeping over the sky and Legolas was stood in the prow of the barge, skimming his fingers through the red-lit water. They had intended to ferry the last chests of the Elvenking’s treasure to his woodland halls, but the rain had started again shortly after full evening fell. The past month’s rainfall had swelled the river, and in the downpour it was difficult even for elvish eyes to make out the rocks and trees beneath the water.

Legolas grasped his shoulder, and his breath was warm and sweet with sunshine against Bard’s ear. “We should wait out the storm,” he called over the cracking of thunder.

“I know a place we can seek shelter,” Bard answered, and they ran the barge aground, dragging it far enough up the bank to keep the river from taking it back to the lake. By the time they found the old river outpost, Bard’s clothes were sodden beneath his oilskins.

Together they pried up some of the old dry boards and set them alight in the fireplace. Legolas hung his dripping cloak over the fireplace, sitting cross-legged on the floor and examining his quiver and bow. Bard stripped off his wet clothes and spread them in front of the fire, holding his hands out to the flame.

“Does the damp not trouble your people, Legolas?” he asked, and Legolas looked up from his careful scrutiny of his arrow fletchings. “Come closer to the fire, you must be wet,” Bard added.

Legolas consented to come closer, running his fingers through his hair and fixing his eyes on the fire.

“What are you thinking of?” Bard wondered presently, when his skin was warm and tingling and his things were dry enough to fashion into a bedroll of sorts.

“I was thinking of Turin and Beleg,” Legolas replied. “Do they tell their tales in Esgaroth?”

“I have never heard them,” Bard admitted, “We have some time before the storm passes, if you are willing to tell me your tale.”

“Turin Turambar was the son of Hurin, the greatest mortal warrior in all of Arda,” Legolas told him. “He came to live in Doriath with the great king Thingol, and there befriended an archer named Beleg Strongbow.” He paused and shook himself like a cat in the rain.

“And what happened to Turin and the Strongbow?” Bard prompted.

“Turin mistook him for an enemy and slew him,” Legolas replied, “Forgive me. It is too sad a story for a dreary evening.” His fingers plucked at the thin braids in his hair and his hair fell in loose corn-silk waves over his shoulders.

“Did Turin grieve?” Bard asked, his breath tight in his throat.

“He wandered the wilds in madness for many seasons before returning to his senses,” Legolas answered.

“The loss of one so fair would be a great sorrow,” Bard said, daring to brush a loose lock of hair behind the delicate shell of Legolas’s ear.

“I did not say Beleg was Elvish,” Legolas murmured, turning his cheek into Bard’s hand.

“I was not speaking of Beleg,” Bard answered, and Legolas lunged forward to press his mouth against Bard’s in a bruising kiss. Bard grasped Legolas’s shoulders and Legolas reared back like a startled horse.

“You must find a mother for your children,” he said nonsensically, “I cannot— _Bard_ , we should not—“

“I haven’t the inclination for a woman just now,” Bard told him, smiling and brushing a kiss against Legolas’s parted lips. “Perhaps tomorrow.”  

“Tomorrow,” Legolas repeated, pushing Bard firmly down on his back and prowling over him.

"Tomorrow,” Bard agreed, seizing Legolas by the waist and drawing him down into another kiss. This time Legolas did not resist him.

  ~~~  

 **EPILOGUE**  

Many men came to Bard’s sickbed in the final days of his life, his children watching over as the people of Dale kissed his hands and blessed him. Bard was old and tired, the strength robbed from his limbs and the keenness from his sight. The well-wishers and his children had gone away when a sudden kiss was pressed to his brow.

“ _Mae govannen, Cúthalion-nin_ ,” an oft-beloved voice said, and Bard opened his eyes to behold the shining face and golden hair of the Woodland Prince.

“I did not think you would come,” Bard told him.

“Word travels quickly on the water,” Legolas replied. “I would not forsake our friendship after so many years, Lord Bard.”

“Would that I were yet a young man,” Bard said, “So that I might claim an hour of your time as I once did.”

“The time you may have,” Legolas answered, “Though there is little I can do for the aging of Men.”

He lay in the bed beside Bard, his unbound hair bright against Bard’s withered shoulder and his voice sweet in the scant space between them. In the quiet darkness he told Bard at last of Turin Turambar and his Strongbow.

“Would you leave me now?” Bard asked as Legolas rose from his bed and began to braid back his hair.

“I have tarried too long,” Legolas told him, “Have no fear, Bard; we will meet again.” He kissed Bard softly on the mouth and then he was gone, passing away like the fresh summer breeze into the bitter chill of autumn.

Bard of Dale and Legolas of the Woodland Realm did not meet again in the lands east of the Great Sea.  

**Author's Note:**

> ****Seriously should MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH even be a surprise in a story about Legolas the IMMORTAL CREATURE? ***
> 
> This story is a product of midnight-brain and leftover "Desolation of Smaug" feels.  
> Edit: I looked it up and Laketown and Esgaroth are the same thing, but I don't know what the region itself is called and the displaced survivors aren't living in the ruins of Dale so Esgaroth it is! 
> 
> All the Elvish is mine and is as follows:  
> Aníron (title): I desire.  
> Tolo ar nin, Legolas: Come with me, Legolas!  
> Goheno nin, Tauriel: Forgive me, Tauriel.  
> Authgwathel: This is only word I totally made up. It literally means “battle sister” and in my mind implies a sort of "brothers in arms" mentality. My Elvish is rusty now and it was always terrible, forgive me.  
> Mae govannen, Cúthalion-nin: Well met, my Strongbow (elves are not too hoity-toity for endearments)


End file.
